


Kuleana (Responsibility)

by lovelornity



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Banter, Character Study, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e22 Ua Hopu (Caught), Episode: s03e05 Mohai (Offering), First Kiss, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3741496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelornity/pseuds/lovelornity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve is chastised by Danny for seeking answers about Shelburne alone, things take an unexpected turn. After the usual banter, hand waving, and playful insults, of course.</p><p>This could plausibly fit into any season where Steve has gone off on his own on a personal crusade. But it was written to fit into season 2, after he returns from Japan with Wo Fat in 2x22 and concludes with a coda to episode 3x05.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"See ya, buddy," Steve told the man standing at his threshold, "Thanks for the lift."

His reunion with his team on the tarmac had been one of anxious laughter, fueled by relief, adrenaline, and unanswered questions. The air was thick with tension, but neither Chin, Kono, or even Danny addressed it, and the latent unease eventually dissipated amongst the smiles, jokes, and embraces shared by all.

But the drive home alongside an eerily-silent Danny and the way in which he had followed Steve to his doorstep warned Steve to tread lightly. The look on his partner's face advised him that he had failed mercilessly in this endeavor. Wordlessly, Steve took a step back to allow the other man inside, steeling himself for an inevitable scolding.

"'Buddy?' Danny exclaimed, walking inside and closing the door behind him.  "Oh, _now_ you wanna be affectionate, huh? After you slink off into the unknown with nothing but some lousy, two-bit Dear John letter?" His hands were waving. "That's not how a partnership works, Steven."

Even mentally and physically drained as he was, hot-headed Danny had the affect it always had on Steve, and so he smiled.

"You're smiling? Good. Yes. I'm glad this is funny to you." Danny huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Danny," Steve said slowly, inching closer to gasp Danny by the arms, one hand firmly on each bicep. "Danny, listen to me," he said, looking him squarely in the eyes. "It was the only way..."

"'The only way,' my ass," Danny interrupted. "You should have told us. You should have told _me_. Going in there on your _own..._ " Danny's voice had taken on a new urgency, escalating from his usual petulant rant. "I would have come with you. We would have—"

"Exactly, Danny," Steve cut in, "You would have come with me."

Danny looked at Steve, not comprehending. Steve's grip on the other man's arms grew firmer.

"This was _my_ fight, _my_ issue to deal with. I knew it could be dangerous. Hell, I was counting on it. I knew I might not come back alive, but that was exactly why I had to go alone."

At this, Danny opened his mouth to protest, but Steve continued. "You're needed here, Danny, with Grace. I couldn't take the chance that I might take you away from her, that I would deprive you of being a father to her."

Silence hung between the two of them for a moment, and Steve could feel the tension in Danny's body lessen.

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, and he shook his head slightly. "You..." he sighed.

Steve smiled deeply at him in return, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off from his chest. Now Danny knew it had not been an act of distrust, of pride, but rather one of preservation, both of Danny and himself. For he knew he could not live with himself if his own personal crusade had put Danny in danger.

"You!" Danny said again, the petulant child creeping back into his voice. He squirmed free from Steve's grasp. "I am trying to be furious with you, and you're looking at me with your bedroom eyes."

"Bedroom eyes?" Steve stammered, laughing.

"Yes, bedroom eyes," Danny exclaimed accusatorily, as he poked a finger into Steve's chest. "Don't play innocent with me. You know you do it."

Steve was taken aback, but he'd be damned if he let Danny know it, so he put on his best innocent face and held his hands up in an "I don't know what you're talking about" gesture.

In reality, he was mortified that his deep affection for his partner had been kept anything but hidden. Yes, there had been infinite moments of flirtation between the two of them, the result of their mutual good humor. Okay, _Danny's_ good humor, and the way he had made Steve open up, to relax. A little. Danny could never keep his hands to himself, and the longer Steve was around him, the more he found himself returning the physical contact. But that was just Danny, right? Some weird New Jersey thing, no doubt. Nothing behind it. Certainly nothing that warranted the shamefully unprofessional feelings he harbored for his partner, the one-sided sexual tension he was forced to endure. It was maddening, at times, trying to understand where these feelings for Danny—for another man—were coming from. He looked for other outlets, to Lori and Catherine. Yes, he was still very much attracted to women. Then why did he want to lunge out and stop the mouth of the man ranting in front of him by sticking his tongue down his throat?

"I can't live like this!" Danny was saying, waving his hands about wildly as he spoke. "How am I supposed to enforce my preplanned, mandatory, you're-a-bastard shunning when you pull the daughter card _and_ use your bedroom eyes? This is insufferable."

"Oh, come on," Steve replied, still smiling at Danny endearingly. "You love me." He had meant it playfully, had said it much in the same tone as Danny threw the word "babe" around."

Danny stopped, his previously waving hands falling to his side. "So what if I do?" he asked, his voice playful.

Alright. Good. Yes. Playful teasing was preferential to rage, no matter how endearing a mouthy Danny could be to Steve. "Wouldn't be the first," he replied, playing along.

"Right, so you do this a lot then, flirting with your colleagues?"

Steve shrugged. "It happens."

"Yeah," Danny replied, and both men's minds flashed to Lori, but instead of bringing her up, Danny said, "I bet it's all the rage with you Navy SEALS."

"Don't ask, don't tell."

"You're an ass," Danny laughed. "And that Stone Age law was repealed."

Steve wasn't sure where this was going, and shit, if he hadn't had a long day. All he wanted now was to call it a night. He smiled a half-smile and placed a reassuring hand on Danny's shoulder. "So, crisis over? Have I passed the test to return into your good graces?"

Danny's bow furrowed, but he nodded. "Don't think this means you get off scot-free. I mean, I have the right to hold it over your head, you know, for a while."

"Right, so you're no longer angry, but you reserve the right to be angry later?"

"Exactly."

"How is this any different from our usual routine?"

"What? Are you saying I'm an angry person? Okay, so I'm an angry person. I'm also a rational person." At this remark, Steve snorted, but Danny continued. "A rational person who harbors a rational amount of hurt over the fact that his partner—with whom he has been through any number of harrowing situations and who his beautiful baby girl affectionately calls 'Uncle Steve'—could up and leave on some suicidal quest without the decency in his tiny, Neanderthal brain to tell me in person, to say goodbye."

So there it was. The problem wasn't just going at it alone, but it was that letter. Steve sighed, not wanting to go there, but the hurt look in Danny's eyes told him this might be the only way to fully salvage their relationship.

"I couldn't see you," he stated.

"Oh, right, because you were worried I'd come with you," Danny said, mocking Steve's earlier heart-felt confession. "Because anyone could get Super SEAL Lieutenant Commander McGarrett to change his mind about anything, especially me. We've seen how well that works in the past." His voice had taken on a cruel, mocking tone.

Steve looked at him, deflated. Of course Danny did not understand. He held up his hands in defeat. "You know what? I'm tired. Let's call a truce."

"A truce? We are not at war here, Steven. We are having a conversation."

"Are we? I thought you were just yelling at me."

"What are you, a teenaged girl? We're sharing. That's what friends do—they talk things through. I know this is difficult for you, what with your near inability to process thoughts that aren't the primal instincts of a trained, ninja-beast, but could you for once, just give it a try?"

Steve was silent for a brief moment, staring at Danny with his brow furrowed. Danny responded with a hand gesture that translated to, "I'm waiting!"

"Are you finished, Danny? Because before you went careening off into one of your _never ending_ tirades, I was about to tell you that if I had told you in person, it would have been nearly impossible for me to walk out that door. Alone. That letter... the letter bought me time to leave, time to get where I knew you couldn't find me. I couldn't risk your getting caught up in this thing too."

"This thing? We've _all_ been caught up in this thing, babe. Chin, Kono, you, me. When it became _your_ problem, it became _our_ problem. That's how families work. I would have thought North Korea taught you that."

"It showed me how deadly my life can be, something I didn't want to bring into 5-0."

Danny looked at him incredulously. "You _do_ know what we do for a living, right?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Damn it, Danny, you know what I mean. Why do you always make things so damned difficult?"

" _I_ make things difficult?" Danny gasped, gesturing toward himself. "I'm not the one getting accused of murdering the governor. I'm not the one careening off into destinations unknown without any backup. I'm the guy who has to clean up your messes. The guy who has to threaten to kill a nasty CIA schlub in order to save your ass from going down alongside Wo Fat. Yeah, that's right," Danny exclaimed in response to Steve's look of uncertainty, "I can be bad cop, too. When it matters."

"Jesus, Danny, I—"

"The point _is_ , your actions have consequences. I know this is something you know, but I am going to pound it into your head until your nose bleeds."

Steve nodded, taken aback by Danny's honesty.

"Next time you feel you need to 'get some answers,' you come to me. In person."

"Got it," Steve replied, hoping it was enough to bring Danny down a notch or two.

He had expected this, or something like it, knew Danny would be angry, but he hadn't expected his disappearance to affect Danny in the way that it apparently had. Danny was right—he did have a one-track mind at times. He knew he had difficulty seeing outside of the scope once he had locked onto his target, whether it was Wo Fat or avoiding a conversation with Danny wherein he would have to reveal that he loved the guy too much to take him along but also depended upon his partnership too much to leave him behind. He felt regret for any hurt he had caused Danny, had caused the team, but he did not regret leaving that note.

Danny was looking at him now, his eyes narrowed, scrutinizing. "You look like shit."

Steve coughed out a laugh. "Well, thank you, Daniel. I've had a very trying day."

"Come on," he said motioning toward the stairs with a nod of his head. "Let's put you to bed."

"I'm a grown man, fully capable of doing that on my own," he protested, but Danny had already grabbed him by the elbow and was ushering him up the steps as if he was an elderly man that needed help crossing the street.

"Don't talk back to me, Steven. I'm a father, I know what I'm doing."

By the time they reached the moonlit bedroom, Steve had decided against further protests and let Danny do whatever he needed to do. When Steve was standing at the edge of his bed, Danny finally let go of his arm.

"Shirt off."

Steve hesitated.

"What's with the modesty all of a sudden? You're usually ripping your shirt off at every opportunity."

Steve reached up behind his head and pulled his shirt up off his shoulders and over his head, revealing a myriad of bruises and scrapes all over his torso.

Danny looked at the injuries and back up at Steve, shaking his head and gesturing as if to say, "See this? This is what I'm talking about."

"Like I said, very hard day," Steve said. He folded his shirt neatly into a square and placed it on the corner of the bed.

"Right. Crashing planes in the jungle and avoiding death from all sides can be taxing, I imagine."

"I really am sorry, Danno." He looked him directly in the eyes and placed a hand on Danny's shoulder, hoping his partner would believe his sincerity.

Danny stared back for a moment. "I know, babe," he sighed, mirroring the movement.

Steve was surprised at how warm his bare skin felt under Danny's touch.

"You know what the real bitch of it was, Steve? I was worried you wouldn't come back." Unlike his earlier outbursts, Danny now spoke slowly and softly. "There'd be no word, no body, nothing. And I'd be stuck here in a place that had only just begun to feel like home with a major piece of that home missing."

Steve didn't know what to say right away, and so he gave Danny's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "I can't promise there won't be situations like this again. And that I won't want to prevent you from coming, from putting yourself in danger on my behalf. But I do promise I won't leave you hanging. No more notes. We'll deal with it together."

"How romantic," Danny replied snidely, but with a warmth in his eyes.

Steve laughed, but then an awkward silence followed, and he became aware that he was half naked and the two men were still touching. Steve dropped his hand from Danny's shoulder, but not before letting it slide down Danny's bicep, a frequent gesture in their rather handsy relationship. But this was different, for Danny's hand was still firmly planted on Steve's shoulder, cupping it almost, so that his thick, frequently gesturing hand was splayed across Steve's tattoos.

Steve cleared his throat and began to turn away. "Thanks, man. I can take it from here." But Danny's hold on his arm stopped him, and he soon found another hand clutching him on the opposite arm.

"What? What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Danny asked, before craning his neck and moving in close so that their lips were nearly touching. "I'm going on a hunch." He closed the space between them and their lips met.

The kiss was short and chaste and both men's eyes were open.

"Uh huh..." Danny mused uncertainly as they pulled away.

Steve stood there, dumbstruck, almost sure that he was hallucinating, or hey, maybe he had gone into a coma in that plane crash and this was some kind of weird fever dream.

"One more try," Danny said, and suddenly his hands were cradling Steve's face and pulling him down slightly until their lips pressed together again.

Where the first kiss had been almost familial, the second was intense. Steve had been unprepared for the first but became a willing participant the second time around. Danny's hands on Steve's face had pulled the two closer together, and Steve closed the gap by wrapping his arms around Danny's small waist. One of Danny's hands skimmed along Steve's jaw until it was clawing at the nape of his neck. Steve took that as a sign to try something of his own, and he parted his lips to send his tongue exploring Danny's mouth. His body shuddered as his tongue tangled with Danny's, reeling to be so intimately connected with the mouth from which spewed words that always made Steve both want to punch him and kiss him.

Steve's hands wandered now, eager to hold tightly to the body he had felt in only fleeting touches. His hands slid down to Danny's ass. It felt firm under his hands, and he could not help but give it a squeeze.

Danny jumped, mumbling, "Oh, um..." into Steve's mouth.

Fumbling, the two men pulled apart clumsily, neither one willing to look at the other.

"Right," Steve stated plainly, breaking the silence.

Danny looked at him then, his breathing heavy, his cheeks red, and his eyes filled with shame.

Steve was confused by it all—by Danny's earlier tirade, fueled by anger and obvious emotion, followed by his tenderness. And lastly by the intimacy that he had initiated then summarily ended. It must have shown on Steve's face because Danny took a step back, running a hand over his still-perfect coif and promptly looked down at the floor.

"Good night, Danny," Steve said dryly, giving Danny the out he so obviously wanted.

Danny looked up from the floor, his face contorted into some weird expression Steve had never seen before. "Yeah, uh, night," he mumbled before turning around and leaving the room.

Steve sat down on his bed. Would this ruthless day never end? He leaned down to unlace his boots, then kicked the clunky shoes off into the dark recesses of the room.

Laying back on the bed, he stretched until the pain of his aching muscles became intolerable, then rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes.

Danny always had to clean up his messes, did he? Well, who was going to fix this one?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the [final scene of episode 3x05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkhujCNFAeA).  
> 

Fortunately for them both, the next day provided enough distraction that it was easy to pretend nothing had happened. Then Steve was off to meet Shelbourne (after a phone call to inform Danny of his plans—at least he'd honor that promise), and on his return, he found he had his old (handsy) Danny back. Which would not have been a problem if Steve did not know what it felt like to have Danny pressed against him, his breath heavy and his hands clawing at Steve's skin. If this was going to work, Steve was going to have to find a way to release the tension that was continually growing every time Danny slid his hands across Steve's chest, gave him a lingering look over a longneck, or when Steve picked a fight with him in the car, just to set him off.

As luck would have it, Catherine found herself landlubbing it for a while, and they soon slipped into their old casual routine of sex and favors. Steve had developed a system, and it was working. But just barely. Which is why, a few days after Halloween, when he found himself not nose-deep in a Navy lieutenant, but instead answering the door to find a bumblebee and an idiot in a cape, it was all Steve could do not to throw himself into the ocean.

Date night ruined and the perpetrators perched cozily on the couch beside him, Steve acknowledged that he had been beaten. He glanced at his partner beside him, and the guy had the nerve to offer him his own bowl of popcorn. Steve sighed, his face set in an expression of amused acceptance. Worst date night ever.

Steve put his arm around Danny and took a handful of popcorn. When Danny settled into the couch—into Steve—and leaned his head on Steve's shoulder, Steve was forced to spend most of _The Notebook_ mentally stripping and cleaning his guns over and over again until his left arm fell asleep and the close, constant proximity of Danny no longer made him want to crawl out of his skin.

By the end of the movie, everyone was dead, Grace and Cath were fighting back tears, and Danny was asleep on his shoulder.

"Hey!" Steve barked, yanking his arm away and waking Danny with a start. "You come in here and hijack my Halloween, and then you fall asleep during the movie you make me watch?"

Danny held his hands up defensively, and his laugh only irritated Steve more.

"Didn't you like the movie, Uncle Steve?" Grace asked, sniffling.

"It was great, sweetie," he replied, looking over at Cath to help him out. She shook her head and mouthed the words " _Child's Play_ ," teasing him over his failed attempt at using the scary movie to seduce her earlier in the night. He knew he was on his own. "It's just not the kind of movie I would have picked for myself is all."

That seemed to satisfy Grace who proceeded to stifle a yawn. Danny was immediately on his feet, muttering something about getting her home before Rachel gave him an earful. Catherine stood, too, and glanced at the door.

"You're not leaving, are you?" Steve asked.

She nodded and pulled him into an embrace. "There's no way you're getting laid tonight," she whispered in his ear, placing a teasing kiss along the edge of his jaw as she pulled away.

"Not even if I quote you that line about the birds?"

"Call me tomorrow," she replied, with smug satisfaction. "Or... don't," she added slyly, glancing over at Danny. She walked out the door with Grace and Danny, who looked over his shoulder at Steve with an indecipherable expression on his face.

The door shut and Steve looked around his empty living room. It was late, but after the way the night had transpired, he felt wired. He grabbed himself a fresh beer and sat down on the couch, drumming his fingertips on his knees, before getting up again and putting in _Child's Play_ —hey, what was Halloween without it? A while later, he had made it farther into the movie than he had ever gotten before, when there was a knock at the door. He half expected it to be Chin or Kono, what with the revolving door of visitors he had had all night.

Instead, he found Danny, sans cape, and with too many buttons undone on his shirt. Steve's eyes lingered a moment before he directed his gaze back toward Danny's face.

"Now what?" Steve asked, curtly.

"Wasn't tired," Danny replied, slipping underneath Steve's arm that was holding open the door.

"Won't you come in?" Steve said mechanically, but Danny was already fishing around in the refrigerator for a beer. He returned with two bottles and tossed one to Steve, who was still standing in the entry way.

"Steven, buddy, as much as I love Aneurism Face, he's not much company. Sit," Danny said, prying off the top of his beer and gesturing toward the sofa. When Steve did so, Danny sat down right beside him, despite the availability of the whole rest of the couch.

Steve could stand it for all of ten seconds before he burst out, "Jesus, Danny, you're killing me, here!" He got to his feet. "Enough with the close proximity!"

Danny, who looked surprised at first, said nothing, but snorted a laugh through his nose as he took a triumphant swing from his beer.

"Son of a bitch. You're laughing?!" Steve exclaimed incredulously, looking down at Danny, who was still seated on the couch.

"You're flustered. This is new, I like it."

"Flustered?" Steve repeated angrily, "I'm not flustered. I'm annoyed. You know why I'm annoyed? Because of you. Because of—" Steve waggled his fingers in Danny's direction, "—whatever that was tonight."

"This?" Danny motioned to himself, "This is me sitting on a couch, Steven." The grin on his face said otherwise.

"You, sitting on a couch," Steve recited back to him. "Unbelievable." Steve shook his head. "You know, tonight, of all nights, I do _not_ have the patience for this. So, I'm gonna need you to take your overly tactile self off of my couch and out the door. We can continue that thing where we avoid talking about it tomorrow."

"It?"

Steve sighed. "Yes, Danny. It. The giant elephant that you let into the room. Or, more accurately, _shoved_ into _my_ room, then slammed the door and have been ignoring ever since."

The tension in the air had been a mixture of heated desperation on the part of Steve and playful confidence from Danny. But Danny's smile wavered slightly at Steve's words. "You grabbed my ass," he finally said, matter-of-factly.

Steve's brows furrowed. "What?"

"You grabbed my ass!" Danny repeated more forcefully.

Steve's mind raced back to that night, to the feel of Danny's hands on his skin, the heat of his body pressed against his own, the taste of Danny's tongue in his mouth. "Yeah?" was all Steve could muster in response.

"But then you squeezed it."

If Danny was trying to convey something by rehashing the transgressions of that night, it was lost on Steve. "Okay," he answered.

Danny became more animated at this, rising to his feet as he spoke. "Okay? Oh, pardon me for reacting when my partner, my very _male_ partner—"

Steve found himself becoming defensive. "Whom you just jumped!" he tried to add, but Danny kept talking over him.

"—starts fondling me like I'm..." Danny did not finish his thought. Instead, he said, "It felt weird, okay? ... Forbidden." He paused, looking at Steve like somehow the conversation had gotten away from him, before shrugging. "Sue me."

Steve was at a loss for words. Of all the reasons that had gone through his mind for why Danny had ended things so abruptly that night, such unease over their intimacy had never occurred to him. Steve's misfiring brain had assumed the worst: repulsion, regret. He had not thought that Danny had succumbed only to the awkwardness of the moment and nothing else.

Steve shook his head. "That's it?" he asked.

"That's it," Danny replied.

"Then why are we just having this conversation now? Danny, that was months ago."

"What? Was I supposed to interrupt your reunion with your mother to ask you how you felt about the fact that I stuck my tongue down your throat? Things got heavy, and we were a bit preoccupied for a while."

Steve gave a small nod in reluctant agreement.

"But then you made it _very_ clear you weren't interested, so I didn't press it."

"What? I did no such thing."

"Please. You started flaunting your lady friend in my face. Let's just say, 'message received.'" Steve started laughing when Danny said the words "lady friend," and he was rewarded with a significant scowl from Danny.

Steve cleared his throat in an effort to stifle his laughter. "Look," he said, his lips still upturned in a smile, "I only turned up the heat with Cath when my balls started going blue. After that night, you were driving me crazy with all your ranting and touching and shark knowledge and—"

It was Danny's turn to laugh, and Steve joined him. When they eventually fell silent, Steve could not help but reach out and trace his fingers across the bare skin exposed by the open buttons on Danny's shirt. Danny's eyes fluttered closed. "I'm not into men, Steve," he said, even as he melted under the movement of Steve's fingers.

"Right."

"And you're not either."

"No," Steve confirmed.

"Then, uh," he swallowed hard, his eyes opening, "what is this?" he asked, gesturing to the both of them.

"I thought you were the one with all the answers," Steve replied. "You were the one who set this all in motion, remember? You kissed me." He let his hand drop from Danny's chest.

Danny rolled his eyes at that. "Okay, but my actions weren't completely unfounded, alright? I put the pieces together, like a proper detective. Besides, if it was up to you, we would still be wallowing in a mire of unresolved sexual tension. Without an end in sight, I might add. Because God forbid you ever open up, display one ounce of vulnerability or emotion."

"Oh, so it's _my_ fault that I didn't make my sexual frustration known? As if it were an easy thing to admit to myself, let alone to you."

Danny pondered that for a moment. "Okay, so what now?" he finally asked.

Steve said nothing. His heart pounded rapidly in his chest and sweat formed on the palms of his hands. He could sense what his body wanted to do, could feel the heat pooling in his stomach and descending even lower. A small part of his mind tried to rebel, firing warnings of _Wait!_ _Stop!_

The commands went unheeded, for suddenly the hesitant silence that had fallen between the two of them was broken when both men simultaneously lunged at each other and met in a clash of teeth and tongues. This time it was Danny's exploring hands that found their way to Steve's ass, and when his hand squeezed, they both began laughing uncontrollably into each others mouths, giggling like children. Their lips broke apart out of necessity, while their arms clung to one another hungrily. Steve leaned down and rested his forehead against Danny's. "Last chance to back out of this, Danny," he whispered.

"Oh, Steve," came his reply, "that ship has sailed." He raised his arms to place his hands on either side of Steve's face, guiding their mouths back together briefly before trailing his lips and tongue along Steve's jaw, behind his ear, and down his neck. A moan escaped Steve's lips as Danny nipped at the delicate skin there, and he felt betrayed by his own body, not wanting to become so pliant to Danny's ministrations.

Steve relinquished control to Danny, but only for a moment before grabbing him around his narrow waist and pulling him down onto the couch beside him. The rush of blood pulsed in Steve's ears, and he could feel his hands trembling as they traveled up the length of Danny's back. Their mouths found one another again, and Steve kissed him greedily, all the while his brain bombarded his thoughts with contradictory commands and emotions. _Stop. Don't stop. This is a mistake. This was inevitable._

For some reason, the conflict in his head only steadied his resolve, and so as his wandering hands reached Danny's shoulders, Steve pushed, sending Danny sprawling across the sofa, his head bumping against the arm rest.

"Oof," Danny breathed as the air was knocked out of him. "Manners, Steven," he teased, but Steve stopped his mouth with a kiss, his body leaning into Danny's, his hands planted on the arm rest on either side of Danny's head, supporting his weight. At this angle, Steve's hips clashed against Danny's, and as Danny writhed beneath Steve, Steve was perplexed to find his own swiftly hardening arousal clashing against Danny's. "Well," Danny mumbled between kisses, "this is awkward as hell."

As far as Steve was concerned, that was the understatement of the century. It was one thing to be kissing Danny, his fingers grazing, skimming, rubbing over his compliant body. It was another thing to be confronted with the very obvious difference between this sexual encounter and every other he had had in his life: there were definitely too many penises in the equation.

Now that the thought had come to him, Steve could think of nothing else. He bit down teasingly on Danny's lip and was rewarded with a breathless groan from Danny, who struggled beneath him, grinding their hips together and sending Steve reeling, even as he wondered what the hell he had gotten himself into.

Danny reached up between the two of them, hesitating for a second, before cupping his hand against the bulge in Steve's pants. A breath caught Steve's throat at the touch, and his body reacted on instinct, his hips thrusting into the other man's hand. A wicked smile formed on Danny's lips, and Steve wanted to kiss it away, but Danny moved his hand slightly, and pressed the heel of his hand into Steve's crotch. Steve's eyes clenched shut, and he tried to regain his composure. Danny used this as an opportunity to seize control of the situation, and with his other hand, he shoved Steve off of him so that they were now sitting beside one another on the couch.

Steve registered annoyance at having inadvertently relinquished control, but then Danny's hands were fumbling with the fastenings of Steve's jeans and any thoughts of complaint fled from his mind.

Having unbuttoned Steve's pants, Danny ran his knuckles up the erection in Steve's boxer briefs, which were already damp with sweat and arousal. Steve's entire body tensed, and an attempt to suppress the moan inspired by Danny's actions failed, resulting in a noise that sounded like a desperate growl.

Danny's eyes sparkled as he squeezed Steve teasingly through the thin fabric, and Steve could tell that Danny enjoyed watching Steve squirm beneath his touch. Steve made a mental note to make him pay for that later.

But why wait? Steve swatted Danny's hand aside, and replicated the other man's earlier actions—unfastening Danny's pants and widening the fly to give him greater access to what lay inside. Steve could see that the situation inside Danny's pants was like his own, and as Steve placed a tentative hand on the bulge within Danny's boxers, he felt overwhelmed by the adrenaline that was coursing through his veins. The anticipation of what was about to happen should he proceed any further overwhelmed him, not unlike the feeling of chasing after a gun-wielding perp or jumping from an airplane at 20,000 feet.

He took a breath and jumped. Metaphorically, of course. Because instead of the wind in his face and the Earth rising towards him, he was sitting on his couch in his living room with Danny's dick in his hand. Steve tightened his grip and began stroking. It was not dissimilar to when he handled himself, except the angle was off. And instead of his own sighs of pleasure, his movements solicited the same out of Danny. Steve barely had the chance to revel in the act of overwhelming Danny's senses before Danny managed to place a trembling hand inside of Steve's boxer briefs, and as Steve tightened his grasp and increased his speed, Danny replied with matching strokes of his own, leaving Steve feeling lightheaded and enraptured.

They each moved at an uneven pace at first, in a way that mimicked their frequent arguing—slow and teasing, before becoming quicker and more heated, each one trying to outdo—or more accurately in this instance— _undo_ the other first.

Steve's eyes darted back and forth between the work of his hand and Danny's face, contorted with pleasure, pupils blown, lips wet and swollen. His own physical pleasure was heightened by the sight of Danny's response, the way his breath caught in the back of his throat and returned with a moan that threatened to send Steve crashing over the edge. He held on long enough to feel Danny shudder beside him, his seed spilling over Steve's hand, before he let go himself, riding the wave of pleasure until his body turned to rubber.

As sexual encounters go, it was awkward and sloppy, but the way Danny's lips curled into a smile and his half-lidded eyes gleamed at Steve told him that there would be plenty of time for them to perfect their technique.

The end credits of _Child's Play_ filled the screen as they sat slouched beside one another on the couch in post-orgasmic bliss. Steve glanced over at the TV. "What do you know? The streak continues."

There was no way for Danny to know of teenaged Steve's reliance on the film as an aphrodisiac, but he somehow sensed Steve's meaning. He reached over and smacked Steve lightly with the back of his hand.

"What?" Steve scoffed good-naturedly, before Danny saw to it that his mouth became otherwise engaged.


End file.
